Weston shuts up immediately.
We start with a puck-support flow drill—three-man weave out of the corner, into the neutral zone, then a quick give-and-go at the blue line before a shot in stride. Simple on paper. Automatic if your head’s where it’s supposed to be.
Mine isn’t.
My legs feel fine. Lungs are fine. Hands are fine.
My brain is the problem. It keeps drifting, not to the idea of two worlds colliding, but to her face. To what it’s going to look like when she knows. To the first thing she’ll say, because it won’t be said in anger.
Worse, it’ll be blame.
Was I stupid? Was this a joke? Were you just using me? How long have you known?
The thought hits hard enough that I fumble the next touch pass. The puck clips the heel of my blade and skitters away like it’s trying to escape me.
Coach’s whistle slices through the rink.
“BENNETT.”
I pivot fast, skating toward him. “Yeah?”
He points his stick like a weapon. “You sleepwalking?”
“I’m fine,” I say automatically, because that’s what athletes say when they’re not fine.
Coach’s eyes narrow. “You look like hell.”
I swallow. “Just tired.”
“Then wake up,” he snaps. “Your timing’s late. Your reads are late. You think scouts care if you’re tired?”
No. They don’t. And I don’t want to be the guy who gets in his own head and wastes a season because he can’t handle real life.
I nod once. “Got it.”
Coach blows the whistle. “Again.”
We run it again.
For thirty seconds, hockey drags me back into my body the way it always does. The cold bites my lungs. The puck stays glued to my blade. The world narrows into angles and timing and simpler choices.
Then my brain flicks to November 21.
And everything widens again.
Owen’s birthday sits in my head like a pain point you can’t stop pressing. It’s coming, just like it does every year. It always comes. It isn’t grief that scares me anymore—I’ve lived with grief for years. It’s the way it changes shape around you without warning. The way it turns an ordinary day into a trap. The way it makes your chest feel too small for your lungs and your body too large to hide in.
And now her birthday sits tangled up in it, like the universe has a fucked-up sense of symmetry. Like it’s daring me to either heal or break.
I take a slow breath.
Not now.
Not here.
Coach switches us into special teams with almost no warning. “Power play. Units.”
Asher drops into his crease, calm as always, tracking pucks like it’s his own form of meditation.
